


Not Quite, But Nearly

by kuonji



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 04:29:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Today had been an emergency, hardly a free choice. They've never shared anything personal. He had always assumed that they never would. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite, But Nearly

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Illicit Fantasies I](https://archiveofourown.org/works/437863) by [kuonji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji). 



> This story was given an Honorable Mention in the 2010 [Ollie Awards](http://community.livejournal.com/sh911award_com), category "Hot Flash Award (Best hot writing/art)".
> 
> Alternate Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/32485.html>  
> <http://starskyhutch911.livejournal.com/338862.html>

He shrugs his flannel shirt a bit looser, cursing inwardly as he walks down the darkened street. He feels ridiculous wearing two shirts in this heat, but he wants the concealment more than the comfort. His loose, long-sleeved outer shirt masks his body type and skin color to a certain extent, and the flapping ends help to distract casual onlookers from the details of his face.

All these are tidbits he's learned on the force, tracking down lowlifes on the backstreets of Bay City. He's not sure how to reconcile himself to the fact that he has willingly become one of them.

He stops at the empty, black-papered storefront that he always does, one door down from the lone streetlight on this block. He's disappointed to find the street empty. He'd had to come much later than he always has, but he hadn't thought the other man would have left already. It isn't quite ten o' clock yet.

A smothered moan alerts him to a presence down the closed alley behind him, and he stiffens -- before he blows out an impatient breath, chastising himself for his foolishness.

The guy had taken another customer, of course. How stupid was he? Did he think this man was somehow reserved for him? Did he think that even this hour and this day of the man was for him alone?

Knowing something and _knowing_ something are different, though. He can't deny that. He tugs his baseball cap lower over his face and leans against the storefront, affecting a casual air even as every muscle in his body is tensed. His ears prick against his will for another outcry from the now silent alley.

Over five minutes later, there's still no stir. He digs his hands into his pockets in spite of the humid heat that's wrapped around him. They have to be done by now, for god's sake. What is taking so long?

He grits his teeth, trying _not_ to imagine what exactly is taking so long.

Finally, another moan. And then another one-- but cut off.

He turns toward the alley with a frown on his face. That hadn't sounded like... Telling himself he has a duty to check it out (masochist!), he takes a step into the alley. And then another.

"Hello?"

The light is poor, which is what makes this space ideal for its usual purpose. He looks first to the almost pitch dark corners where he would have expected someone to be, but he detects no presence there. At first glance there seems to be no one closer to the mouth of the alley either.

He gives in to the twin itches in his hands and his brain, and he draws his weapon. "Anyone here?" he demands, a little louder. He scans the ground and -- _there_. He sees a twitch of movement in the gloom. As his eyes acclimate to the dark, he makes out a single sprawled human shape a couple of yards farther in from himself, feet towards him and head towards the far end. Aside from stray litter, the alley is otherwise empty.

"Shit."

The voice of the soft curse is a familiar one. It propels him the few steps down to the man's side. "Oh, my god." He holsters his weapon and kneels down slowly, knowing already what he will see.

It shouldn't shock him -- the evidence, obvious even in the dim light, of both physical and sexual assault. He isn't exactly a veteran yet, but he's been a cop for enough years, and had half-trained -- if somewhat lackadaisically -- for medicine before that.

All that training seems to fly out the window now. Even the first aid training he'd brushed up on six months ago seems ancient, inaccessible history. His hands hover over the suffering man. "Are you--" He shuts his mouth on that absurd question. "Where does it hurt most? Can you feel your fingers and toes?" There. That sounds more professional.

His heart hammers inside his chest. He'd been standing out there all this time. Not knowing. This man could have _died_ while he was worrying about his cover, and stewing in irrational jealousy.

Jealousy? Yes. Damn wrong time to be dishonest with himself, after all.

"If it isn't Officer Fri-- day." The sarcasm is reassuring, but the hitch in the middle of the last word is not. The man makes a fist with his outstretched left hand and heaves with his body. All he succeeds in doing is to punt himself forward a few inches. His bared thighs tremble.

"Stop moving. Jesus. You might be hurt."

"I _might_ be...? You're a riot."

Snapped out of his daze of horrified shock, he categorizes what he can: contusions on the torso, one long bloody scrape across the left shoulder blade, deep bruising at the neck, clear finger marks that are black against the pale buttocks. He can't see the man's arms or face or the front of his body, and he can't see into the valley of shadow between the man's thighs, but the odor left behind by violence and violation tell the story clearly enough.

He wants to throw up. He hasn't done that since he was a rookie -- even if he was once known as Cadet Crybaby. Tears prick at him now.

"Who did this?" he demands. His former jealousy burns in an instant to controlled rage.

The man's own body blocks most of the light to the face, but he can easily imagine a grimace there. "Doesn't matter." The man braces himself again, but this time he puts a quelling hand on the man's shoulder.

"Wait," he cautions.

The man ignores him, heaving again, only to fail again at rising, instead sliding forward across the dirty ground another scant inches. The shock of landing jerks out another moan.

"Dammit, stop!" He pushes on the nearest shoulder, intending to help the man roll to his side, so he can assist in hauling him up. A growl awards his trouble.

"Don't touch me. Shop's closed for the night." The sarcasm is gone, replaced by smoldering fury.

"I'm not trying to-- I just want to help!"

Once again ignoring him, the man strains and this time succeeds in rising to elbows and knees, limbs spread for balance and head hanging down. The tattered remains of the man's dark sleeveless T-shirt flutter around his shoulders, and the man's unprotected lax genitals sway free like an animal's, sickening.

He catches hold of the man around the waist before abused muscles can give out and dump the man on the unforgiving cement yet again.

"Let _go_ , Friday." A string of curses drop out of the man's mouth, like jewels out of the princess from that fairytale he'd read as a child.

"Shut the fuck up and let me help you," he swears back, losing his patience in the face of his fear for this man. He pulls the slim but solid body into his lap. "You're hurt bad. Let me _help_ , won't you?"

The moan this time has an edge of a sob in it, and the man struggles only once before going limp in his arms, breathing heavily.

He debates attempting to pull up the bunched jeans from around the man's ankles but decides finally that the task will be easier once the man is upright. He places the man's arms over his shoulders and puts his own arms under the other's armpits. "On three, I'm going to lift, okay?" He doesn't need to tell the man to help. He braces himself.

It's like felling a tree.

He's afraid to move too quickly, to jostle something and cause more pain, and his muscles burn as he lifts the equivalent of his own body weight a steady few inches at a time. Grunts and strangled groans accompany his efforts, and he feels and hears hitching breaths whistle by his ear. By the time they're both standing, the man slumped shaking against his own, they're both plastered with sweat in the seventy-five-degree miasma.

"All right. Hold on." As gently as he can, he half-walks, half-drags the man to lean against the alley wall.

"Fuck," the man swears, pushing his head back against the brickwork and bracing his palms and shoulders to help keep him from sliding back down. " _Fuck_."

"I'll get your pants." The man turns his head away and closes his eyes in answer. It'd been toward the end of the alley, away from the light, but he can see the smudge of those dark lashes and the profile of that strong jaw, those full lips, and the distinctive nose.

He doesn't know what to do, how to feel. He wants to touch the man's face, bestow kisses and offer assurances and wrap that body in protective arms that he knows would be unwelcome. He also wants to question the man about his attacker while the memory is fresh. The usual arguments float into his head, the coaxing, righteous words they use (almost always ineffectually) to try to convince rape victims to testify.

But this isn't a case.

And this man isn't his lover.

_He's fantasized about touching another man like this. He's thought about it safe at night, when his own hand is nothing more than a phantom lover and his thoughts are like nebulous dreams that he can pretend he has no control over._

_He's thought about it for years. Years filled at first with confusion and anger, later with fear and denial. And recently with yearning and a broad swath of rebellion._

_Yet nothing can compare to the real thing._

_He strokes his palms over the strongly muscled back again and again, reveling in the sculpted taper from broad shoulders down to slim waist. He reads the man's body like a blind man, his fingers over-sensitized. And greedy._

_"You wanna touch something else, you're welcome to it."_

_The voice reminds him that the body is attached to a person. A human being with feelings and a will of his own. Guilt surges up, and he drops back, uncertain again._

_"Hey." Strong hands, unexpectedly callused, grab his wrists and guide him under the shirt again. This time in the front. "You are a cherry, aren't you, honey? Shit, I thought you were playing coy."_

_Shamed by this on-the-mark assessment, he surges forward, knocking the man back a step until they're pressed up against the wall. He kisses the man hard, driving his tongue cruelly into the waiting mouth. He slides his hands under the stretchy fabric, roughly taking in the feel of hard muscles and hair and tiny nipples that he wants to taste._

_He's trembling already, right on the edge. When the body in his grasp breaks away, he growls and hangs on._

_The man laughs. "Hang on, tiger." His hands are detached from that delectable body and placed over the man's shoulders against the wall. "Trust me, you'll want to hang on," the man says, sounding cocky, but not obnoxiously so._

_As he slides down, the man makes sure to mark his passage with hands and tongue. He's groaning and thrusting, before deft hands open his pants. An erotic, tight caress he realizes is a condom being rolled on, and then he has to bite down a scream when a man's tongue touches his sex for the first time._

_Looking down, he sees the man working, a talented multi-skilled coordination of fingers and lips and tongue and palms. The man is like a drummer in his cage, fastidious in finesse, but looking for all the world abandoned and wild, beating faster and faster and faster on a crescendo, until--_

_The man's right. He's glad he's braced against the wall._

_He's steered to lean against the brick, gasping, when it's done. He hears the instantly recognizable shuffle of bills, and a moment later, his left hand is pried away from the wall, where he'd been using it to brace himself up, and something is stuffed into it. He looks down._

_"What...?"_

_"We didn't get to the fucking, and I never overcharge." The man-- No, the... prostitute... winks at him in the dim light filtering into the alley. "Come back next time, Officer. We'll pick up where we left off."_

He pulls up the jeans, wincing at how they hug every curve and line. He can't imagine how that must feel on the man's battered skin. Indeed, as he yanks them around the man's waist, he hears an aborted gasp, and the man's fingers tighten on his shoulder.

"I can handle it from here." The voice is raspy with pain.

He turns away, giving the man a measure of privacy to tuck himself away and slowly navigate the button fly. But he whips back around and leaps forward with a cry when the man tilts, looking like he's about to fall.

But he's not falling. He's reaching down.

"What are you doing? We just got you up, for god's sake."

"I fucking earned it," the man says. Defiantly. Cryptically.

He scans the ground, noting that it is the direction in which the man had been reaching a few minutes ago. Reaching? No, he'd been trying to crawl there, hadn't he, wounded as he is. What could have been so important?

Ice wars with fire within him when he spots it -- a curl of a dirty greenback amongst the litter on the ground. "He _paid_ you?"

"You think I'd let someone do this for free?"

 _You idiot_ , he wants to scream, _why would you let anyone do this at all? It's just money!_ Only, of course he doesn't.

Because it isn't just money. Not by a long shot. It's food and shelter. It's safety for a man who has very little of it.

Stooping down, he picks up the bill. A lousy twenty.

_"Ten bucks for a blowjob, twenty for a fuck. How about it, handsome?"_

_He swallows at the confident voice of the hustler hawking his wares. Both of them know that he wants what's offered. He's been pacing this stretch of the street for the last ten minutes in indecision._

_What would it hurt? Nothing and nobody._

_As long as nobody found out, that is._

_"I-- I don't know--"_

_"I'll show you everything you need to know." A tilt of the head and a sly look accompany a subtle jut of those slim, canted hips._

_"That's not what I meant. I-- I'm a cop," he blurts in a strained whisper. It's the stupidest thing he could have said, he knows, but he can't take it back now. He watches the hustler in naked fear. The dark man just laughs, shaking the copious curls atop his head._

_"Like I said, I'll show you everything you need to know. And, I won't tell anyone what they don't need to know." The hustler's hand touches his chest, in the space where his leather jacket falls open. Even through an undershirt and a turtleneck, he feels the fingers trail down, hot and full of sinful knowledge._

_"I-- I-- Oh, god."_

_The hand grips him, and another hand seizes his shoulder. He's pulled in, and before he knows what's happening, his lips are scorched by a melting, hard kiss._

_Kissing is his weakness. He's never even dared to imagine kissing another man. He can't pull away now to save his life. He's gasping and floundering like a dying man, and he knows he is lost._

_He knows now why they're called 'hookers'._

He hands the twenty over, solemnly. The man snatches it away but doesn't look him in the eye as he stuffs it into his left front pocket.

"I'll help you home."

"Fuck," is all the man says in reply.

He waits.

He's never seen where the man lives. He hadn't ever expected to. But he can't leave the man alone in this condition. The man might be only a... a whore. But to him, the man has become... Well, 'special' isn't exactly the right word. But it's not a wrong one, either.

"Fine," the man agrees, sounding exhausted. "C'mon."

The man's place turns out to be only a block away, in the corner of a building he'd thought was abandoned. There's apparently no electricity, and there's no one at the front when they stumble inside, the man walking a little more easily now, but with beaded brow and tight-clenched teeth.

They shuffle past the defunct elevator and labor up narrow stairs to the second floor. They take a breather against the wall outside what must be the door to the man's room -- one of two on the floor -- before the man gestures down.

"What?"

"The key. It's in my right shoe." The man wiggles the shoe in question.

"You're kidding me." He kneels obligingly and plays Cinderella's prince in reverse. Indeed, a naked key lies under the lining in the heel pocket. "How do you stand to walk on that all day?"

"I don't haveta walk very far." The man cracks a sliver of the roguish smile that he'd been attracted to the first time he'd laid eyes on this man. "Learned it from some TV show when I was a kid, and it works. Ain't lost anything from my shoe in twenty years."

Shaking his head in wonder, he opens the door for the man and then hands the key back. It's brighter inside than he'd expected. There's a decently large window -- open to disperse the mugginess indoors -- and the moon is bright tonight, allowing him to take a look around.

It's neat and clean inside. He's not sure what he'd expected, but not this homey place with a well-made mattress on the floor and what looks like stacks of books and magazines around it. There's a cylindrical shape on a dish that might be a candle. A large box in the corner.

Before he can glimpse any more, the man's turned around to lean against the half-open door and the doorframe, blocking his view. "Okay, boy scout. You got me home. Have a good one."

"What? That's it?" He's momentarily stunned by the abrupt dismissal.

The man's backlit so he can't make out his expression at all, but the tilt of that curly head is all challenge. "I told ya, shop's closed for the night. If you're looking for some help, you'll have to find one of my colleagues."

"That's not what I meant!" he protested. "You're hurt."

"No shit."

"You need your wounds cleaned."

"I'm fine."

"Listen, you don't want to get infected. People _die_ from--"

"I'm _fine_." The man pauses, and his tone changes just slightly. "Go home, Friday. I'll be okay."

He stares, trying to tell himself he's wrong about the inflection behind those words. "This has happened before?" he asks in a near whisper.

"Go home." The door starts to close in his face, but he jams his elbow against it, knowing the man is too exhausted by pain to put up much of a fight.

Without stopping to second-guess himself, he hooks one arm around the man, both to hold and to support him, and with the other hand, he holds the man's head steady.

He doesn't kiss him.

Instead, he touches his forehead to the other's, and shares his air for a while. "Please," he says. "I want to help you."

_"How much to blow you?"_

_The beautiful man's thick eyebrows fly upwards. The normally seductive features flicker a bit. "Forty," he answers shortly._

_"Are you crazy? That's more than--"_

_"Forty," is repeated forcefully. The man's face goes coy. "Take it or leave it, Friday."_

_A challenge, was it? He's on his knees before the man can say anything more. Glancing up, he sees surprise. He unbuttons the fly and pulls it out -- the first penis he'll ever make love to._

_He laughs at the appellation even in his own head. Make love to, indeed._

_Even so, it's with a certain tenderness that he takes it into his mouth._

_"Yeah, just like that," encourages the... trick. "You have any idea what you look like? All beautiful and eager and taking my cock like candy. Yeah. You do it good, blondie. I feel your tongue all over me, making me wet and hard. You make me fly, baby."_

_The throaty voice excites him, but his instincts were always good, and something feels wrong. He draws back, as if to take a breather, and he glances up._

_The man is looking back at him with heavy-lidded eyes, true, but the damn whore has what he calls a 'grocery list' cast to his features. He'd been with a girl once who always took a mental time-out when he went down on her. She'd insisted that it felt good, but he hated doing it when her mind clearly wandered._

_"Hey," he says angrily. "I'm not paying you to play make-believe here."_

_The whore doesn't even look chagrined. "You want a show? Forty dollars. You want the real thing? Go find yourself a fucking boyfriend."_

_He's on his feet with fists clenched. The hooker wraps his own hand around his own exposed cock. "Don't quit your day job, Officer. Worst blow job I've had this century."_

_His face burning with shame, he turns and stalks away, determined never to set foot in this damnable alley again. But at the last second, like the doomed Orpheus, he can't resist looking back. Even in the dim light, he can see a strange look of relief on the man's face._

_Seeing him, the man instantly redons that usual mask of nonchalance. "What's the matter? You want to fill out a customer dissatisfaction card?"_

_He goes back and takes the man's chin, firming his hold when the man attempts to squirm away. He leans in. "Tell me what you like."_

_"What?" The man's eyes go wide, the corneas reflecting a white ring around his irises._

_"I want to make you moan for real. I want your knees to tremble when I put my mouth on you. I want to suck you and play with you, make you shake so bad you can hardly stand. I want you to ram your cock into me, and even when I choke because I'm no good at it at all, I want you to just keep fucking because it feels so damn good you can't stop."_

_The man makes no sound other than a series of quicker and quicker hoarse exhales. He sinks his voice deep and reaches down with his free hand to cup the man's still naked balls._

_"Tell me what you think about when you're alone and horny. Tell me what you fantasize about, because that's what I'm going to be. Tell me what makes you come. Tell me."_

_"Shit. Aw, shit." The man swears some more and pushes down on his shoulders. He sinks down quickly, riding the momentum he can't quite believe he's started. "Lick me, root to tip. No, harder. Yeah, like that. Keep doin' that. Yeah, ohhh, god, yeah. My balls with-- Ah... Just like that. Ahhh, Friday, you're so...! Gimme your other hand."_

_His hand, the one not rolling the man's balls, is seized and placed palm-down over the man's abdomen. He's guided in whisper-light circular strokes. He can feel the man trembling where he's pressed against those strong thighs, and as he works at it the way he's been shown, the man starts -- as if against his will -- to thrust minutely. And then harder. A hand tangles in his hair, and he's filled with a sense of absolute power._

_"Oh, god. Oh god, yes. Suck me now. Just the tip. Ohhh, god. Faster. Unggh. Ahhh, more. Please, fuck dammit shit shit shit." The man's further swear words are cut off by a long groan, as he comes._

_He tries to hang on, but just as he'd predicted, he begins gagging and has to back off to cough and draw in a few gasping breaths. The man grabs his hand and strops his cock with it, and they squeeze out the last drops together._

_Licking his lips, he berates himself half-heartedly. He'd been stupid. They hadn't used a condom, and he knows he can't be the only customer this man services. But it's difficult to care when he's flying so high._

_And he hadn't even come, himself._

_He's the more unsteady one when he stands. The man, face lowered, is already upright and busy buttoning his fly._

_"Forty?" he confirms, wiping his mouth shakily before reaching for his wallet._

_"No." Finished, the man still doesn't meet his eyes. His voice sounds more subdued than it's ever been. "That one's for free." Then, seeming to recover, the man raises his head and flashes him a sly grin. "But it'll be forty when you ask me to fuck you."_

The man shakes his head. "I don't get you."

Taking that for acquiescence, he smiles. "I know." Pushing forward gently, with his hands on the man's shoulders, he enters the man's abode. "Do you have a bathtub? A soak would be good for you."

The man snorts. "What do you think this is, the Ritz? There's a bathroom next door with a sink."

He's appalled. "You don't even have a shower?"

"Don't worry, Friday. I keep myself clean." Grunting, the man pulls a handtowel from behind the door. He takes it and, exploring the hardness inside, discovers that it's wrapped around a bar of soap. "Welcome to Minimalist Manor."

He swallows his protests, knowing that there's no point in demanding what just isn't available. He should probably be glad there's running water.

They're forgetting something, though, and he's loathe to bring it up even though it's necessary. He'd hoped to let the man rest in the bathtub while he went out for supplies, but that plan isn't going to work anymore.

"We should get something for your--" Three years in vice, and he can't even say the word to a man who works the streets. "--all your injuries," he finishes lamely. "Look, why don't you stay here. I'll go get some antibiotic cream and some bandages. I'll help you clean up and put the stuff on when I get back."

"I'm not an invalid," the man gripes.

"You look like you're about to fall over," he snaps back, suddenly furious. How had this man survived as long as he seems to have, with that ridiculous pride and so little sense of self-preservation? Having lost his patience, he grips the man and tows him to the mattress on the ground. "Stay here, you got it?"

He tugs, not giving the man a choice. With a grunt, the man topples down, the fall controlled only by his supporting arms. He lays the man down on his side, regretting his roughness as he notes the harsh breathing and clenched fists. "Just wait for me, okay?" he says, gently now. He cards his fingers through the man's hair and is surprised when the man does not protest.

"The closest drug store..." the man starts to say.

He smiles. It's not straight-out compliance, but it might as well be. "I know where it is. Remember?"

The man looks up at him, and a faint smile blossoms to tug at the corners of his eyes. "Oh, yeah."

"I'll be back in fifteen," he promises. He lays a kiss on the man's cheek before he goes, and he practically runs out of the door so that he doesn't have to think about why he did it.

_"Are you ready for me?" he asks, in what he hopes is a sexy whisper. The man's not wearing underwear, as per usual, a fact which he knows intimately, considering where his hands are right now. He strokes the tight valley, and his gut clenches when he brushes over the man's hole._

_"You want to fuck me today?" the man asks right back. He hardly sounds winded, which drives him crazy as much as it turns him on._

_"That's right." He pierces the spasming muscle with his index finger, leering when he encounters slippery heat there. The man's ready, all right. Has been since before they started._

_"You want to be in there, don't you, big boy? You want to fill me up inside and listen to me moan so good. My tight hole's going to squeeze your cock like a lover, make you crazy."_

_"Yeah," he breathed, humping against the man's front. The man is aroused as well. That doesn't always happen, and he'll never quite get used to that flutter he feels when it does. "You want me, too, don't you? You've been waiting for me."_

_The man intercepts the hand he's slid to the front with the idea of stroking. "I have been waiting. And if you want me, you're going to have to wait, too."_

_"Huh?" The words are so far out of left field, he has to freeze his movements to process them._

_The man pulls him down for a searing kiss, then straightens up and pulls his hands out of their warm cocoons, front and back. "I've got an errand for you," the man says, kissing his palms one after the other before turning him loose._

_"What?" He still can't comprehend what's happening._

_Winking, the man turns out his rightside pocket and pulls out a bill, which is slapped into his slack hand. "I'm out of rubbers," the man purrs. "If you still want to do this, you'll have to go get some for me. There's a drug store four blocks that way." The man points. "Open twenty-four hours. You can't miss it."_

_"But you always--!"_

_"Four blocks that way," the man repeats._

What an idiot he'd been, he realizes, as he takes his items to the checkout counter and pulls out his wallet.

He'd certainly felt like an idiot, of course, walking in there sweaty and disheveled with a hard-on that refused to go away completely. He'd bought some gum and a bottle of water out of his own pocket in addition to what he'd gone there for, in a transparent attempt at camouflage. He could have sworn the clerk gave him a knowing smirk. There were whores all up and down the streets in this area, and the pony-tailed, gap-toothed old-timer assuredly knew it.

But he'd truly been an idiot because he hadn't caught on then what the whole charade had been about. He'd been feeling too humiliated and sore at the man to puzzle it out.

It'd been a test, on the face of it. In the sense of, How much do you want me? That had rankled with him, having his need shoved in his face like that. His wounded pride had been salved only by the extra-solicitous treatment he'd received after he'd returned. Later, he had tried to forget the whole incident.

So he hadn't realized: It'd been a show of trust, of course. Just like taking him home today was, and allowing him to help.

Unlike sadly many of his colleagues, the man is fit and healthy and clean. About this, he's adamantly careful. Every time before that, and every time after, the man had always had condoms ready -- going so far as to refuse to use the ones he brings. To directly ask a customer to provide them had been completely off the script.

The man shouldn't have done it, of course. Making rules for safety and then sticking to them should be of paramount importance in the man's line of work. The fact that this particular client is a cop shouldn't have been any kind of assurance, a fact surely known, considering how constantly the man mocks his profession. What, then, had made the man risk it?

He shakes his head, jogging up the stairs back to the place the man calls home, his purchases in hand. He's never been sure what is going on between the two of them, but he often worries that it isn't normal -- even in the context of dangerous abnormality they already inhabit.

He knocks on the door before entering, wanting to give the man as much sense of control as possible under the circumstances. He's shocked to discover the room empty. Had the man run? In his condition?

"Hello? Where are you?" he calls out, awkwardly aware of the fact that he doesn't even know the man's name. He knows dozens of snitches through his work -- hookers and users and winos and all manner of scum -- but he doesn't know what to call the man he shares his flesh with once a week in the dark. "Hello!" he yells again.

He hears a low moan and quickly traces it to a different door in the hall. Fearing what he might find, he pushes open the door with adrenaline flooding his body -- and stops.

"What are you doing?" he yells, glimpsing for a moment the mix of terror and rage that a mother must feel when she catches her son playing with knives or petting a strange animal.

The man is leaning heavily on the countertop of a dingy sink. The claustrophobic press of heat is even more pronounced in this tiny room. The only illumination is a fat candle next to the panting man's elbow. By its light, he can make out a seatless commode in front of the door. On the other side of the man, there is a dirty, grime-covered bathtub with black holes where the faucet would once have been.

The man turns to glare at his outcry, but the usual heat in that look is halved at least by the misery pinching his face. Sinking his head back between his arms, the man's voice comes out muffled: "Go away."

"You were supposed to wait for me."

"Screw you."

He gathers the vestiges of his anger and braces himself with them as he steps forward. He lays one hand atop the man's left fist, which is clutching a dark cloth. It's been dampened. He notices the tail of it dripping pink water onto the squares of tile that cover the counter. "Give that to me," he commands.

" _Screw_ you," the man repeats. The grip on the cloth tightens, but when he tugs firmly, the hand spasms once, and then lets go.

He rinses the cloth out, then takes the candle and kneels behind the man. As he had expected, a wound had evidently been reopened. There is a thin line of viscous fluid -- blood -- trailing down the man's right inner thigh, like a small poisonous river. It's reached just past the man's knee but is at least travelling reassuredly slowly.

He remembers the moan that had alerted him to the man's location, and he can piece together what had happened. Having heard him return, the man must have attempted to finish the job before he could be found, and in his hurry, he had been less than careful.

Or perhaps he had been less than careful to begin with.

Gently, he presses the wetted cloth against the man's anus. The compact, muscular body flinches, but the man makes no sound. After patting away the rest of the blood, he brings the cloth back to the sink for another rinse.

"I'm going to take a look at the damage," he says, controlling his voice to make it sound aloof and objective.

The man nods, again without a word.

Holding the dish with the candle on it in one hand, he uses the other to pull the man's right buttock aside. The man hisses but after a moment spreads his legs farther apart to help expose himself.

He ignores the burn in the back of his throat and holds the candle closer.

There's one larger tear, the one that had been bleeding and that is still seeping now. Other than that, he sees only several smaller injuries, like paper cuts, spidering around the bruised and slightly swollen opening. An inspection of the other side reveals the same minor wounds.

He relays what he sees, and the man acknowledges his report with a grunt. Hesitating to inspect for internal damage, he finally asks aloud, "How does it feel inside?"

After a pause, the man replies in a tight voice, "I think it's okay. I had a little chance to... relax."

"Did he use protection? A condom?"

"Yeah. That's probably-- It was too dry."

"He didn't use any lubricant?" His gut churns with anger, but he keeps his voice steady. His cop voice. Sympathetic but not involved.

A short snort of laughter is his answer. "What do you think?" The man adds bitterly, "The customer is always right."

He has no reply for that. Or rather, he has too many of them, none of them helpful. He closes his eyes for a second, then says, "Wait here."

He's back in a few seconds with what he needs. "Hold this," he says, and presses the small paper towel-wrapped bag of ice against the sensitive, swollen tissue of the man's anus.

The man swears, the expletives bouncing around the bare walls of the bathroom. "That's _cold_." But he frees one hand to hold the ice bag in place. "You're some sort of sadist, aren't you?" the man jokes.

He breathes a small sigh of relief at evidence of the man's returning humor. "Just wanted you to feel useful while I give monsieur his sponge bath." The man hadn't had time to clean up the rest of himself, as the scent and sight of dirt and sweat attest to.

The man shrugs, winces, and holds up a towel -- the man's bathing towel, he remembers. "Use this. I didn't want to get blood on it."

"What's this thing?" he asks, unbunching the cloth he is holding. It's the remains of the man's shirt. Paper-thin with wear to begin with, it'd been ripped nearly in half and with holes torn in two places.

"Fucking _bastard_ ," he bursts out with, hurling the cloth to the ground and grinding his heel into it.

"No kidding. Where'm I gonna get another Grateful Dead shirt?"

The joke leaches away a part of his anger. "Glad you have your priorities straight," he grumbles, as he takes the towel and begins his work.

He would have thought running his hands over this man's bare body in candlelight would be an erotic experience. It turns out to be only an exercise in patience. He has to rein in his temper tighter and tighter as he encounters each new injury.

The bruises have had time to surface gruesomely. It's easy, having viewed countless evidence photos, to distinguish where kicks had landed, and where blows and violent grips had found targets. Marks around the man's throat are evidence of strangulation, perhaps enough to subdue him into lightheaded disorientation.

The shallow but long scrape across the man's shoulder blade tells a story of being thrown against the wall. The deeper and dirt-encrusted abrasions all along his front and deepest on his chin, cheek, and forearms, and the delicate genitals, tell of being held heavily to the ground while someone behind him...

He rinses out the towel for the last time, exhaling with a shudder. "Let's get you to your bed, and I'll put the cream on you."

"How come all your ideas involve you touching my ass?" the man grumbles, maybe only half-seriously. He's on the edge already, however, and this is too much.

He turns on the man, all his fury surely showing on his face. "Will you fucking _stop_? For the last time, I'm not going to touch you tonight."

The man stares at him with hooded eyes. Then he tosses the half-melted ice bag into the sink and walks out on his own power, if with little of the panther-like grace the man usually possesses.

Feeling slightly shamed, he follows and stands nervously as he waits for the man to situate himself on the mattress.

The man turns his head to eye him with clear defiance as he lays himself out provocatively. "Twenty bucks," he says.

"W- What?" He stammers in his confusion, not sure if this is a response to what he said before.

"To see me like this."

"I just told you I--"

"You're getting a fantastic deal. I was plannin' to charge you sixty to bring you home."

He's stunned. Not by the price. By the fact that this man had ever considered bringing him here, to his safe haven. Today had been an emergency, hardly a free choice. They've never shared anything personal. He had always assumed that they never would.

_He fists the money in his pocket as the empty storefront -- and the man -- comes into view. He's saved up a little cash, and this is what he wants. He's sure of it. He's just not sure if the other man will go along with it._

_"Evenin', Officer," the man says, low, with that gibing grin that he finds equal parts irresistible and irritating. With his usual lithe, powerful grace, the man swings around into the alley, out of the direct light, and he follows. "What'll it be tonight?" the man breathes, wrapping warm hands intimately around his neck._

_He puts his arms around the man's sinewy waist and swallows once, pausing to steady his nerves. "I'd like to take you to a hotel. If that's all right."_

_The man is still relaxed in his arms, but those shadowed eyes narrow shrewdly. "You wanna play in the big leagues now, huh? Want an all-nighter?"_

_"Yeah." He's hard just thinking about it, having this man in a bed finally, nude and vulnerable and pleasuring him all night long -- and perhaps vice versa? What will this half-shadowed satyr look like in the light? Will he be disappointed? Somehow, he doesn't think so. "I'll pay for the room, of course."_

_"You sure this is what you're after?"_

_"Absolutely."_

_"All right. A hundred."_

_"A hundred!"_

_"That's right."_

_"But that's ridiculous. All the other hookers--"_

_The man disengages from him so fast, he feels like a limb's been chopped off. "You've been talking to other hookers, huh?"_

_That accusatory tone makes him feel instantly guilty. And defensive. "Nobody else refuses to take their customers home. What's so special about you, huh?"_

_"What the fuck, Friday. You gettin' tired of me or what?"_

_His pride has been hurt enough that he retorts, "What if I am?"_

_The man seems to seize up for a moment, and he's glaring like death. But then he exhales short and loud, and he shrugs his shoulders. "It doesn't matter if you are. Anyway, you're here now, so what do you want?"_

_He's all mixed up, furious and disappointed. Yanking out the wad of bills, he randomly selects what turns out to be a ten, and he jerks the man forward by the waistband of his jeans to stuff the bill contemptuously into the tight pocket. He squeezes the man intimately in an unanswered challenge before taking his hand away. "Gimme a blow job," he orders._

_The man drops to his knees without a word and goes to work. The fingers are just as skillful as ever, and the tongue just as nimble and wet, but the teasing repartee and cocky attitude are missing. He orgasms, but it's joyless, and he can't even look the man in the eye when he leaves._

_The next Friday, they both act as if nothing had happened. But something's changed between them._

"Twenty?" he repeats, when he gets his wits back about him.

The man shrugs. "Or you can just go."

"N-No, I'm staying." He doesn't complain, because he _is_ getting a fantastic deal. "Did you want the cash up front?" He's not sure if he has enough, actually. He'd been a little short this week and had already spent most of his projected budget for the night at the drug store.

It might be only his imagination, but the man's face seems to soften. "Naw, I was just kidding. Though this _really_ isn't how I thought it'd go down." He doesn't think he's imagining the pensive tone he hears.

"I should get the, uh, the--"

"Jesus, Friday, what's with the scared virgin act? You're not the one laid out like a Christmas turkey."

He drops down by the man's side. "I'm fine. Just scared for my bank account." He tries to quirk a smile, and he must have succeeded, because the man laughs.

"That's what I'm here for, buddy. To remind people of their fiscal responsibilities." The way the man waggles his eyebrows causes him to smile for real.

He takes out what he needs, starting by snapping on a pair of latex gloves. The man eyes him warily at that.

"Afraid you'll catch something?" the man asks, voice full of irony.

"No, I'm afraid you will." He avoids the man's eyes as he uncaps the bottle of antibiotic and analgesic cream, turning the cap over to pierce the seal with its pointed tip. "I wasn't kidding about people dying from infections."

He can too easily imagine this man burning with fever and pain, dying from a simple thing like an infected wound. This room is no place for an injured man to recover. There's no electricity, no bathtub, no refrigerator, no telephone. Nobody to care.

Working gently but efficiently, he treats and bandages the scrapes and small cuts on the man's body first. The man makes no sound and responds obediently to his few directions, but he can sense those eyes following him intently. Finally, having finished with the man's chest, he looks up. "I have to..."

The man grunts in reply. He rolls to his stomach and spreads his legs, this time with no snide or teasing comments. After a second, the man shifts and reaches back to pull his buttocks apart.

"You don't have to do that..." he protests, but the man makes no answer and does not move. The strong face is turned away from him, leaving only the view of a curl-tumbled back of a head. He puts on the mask of a medic and moves to kneel between those hairy, muscular legs.

The ice seems to have helped. The swelling is down, and while the largest tear is glistening wetly in the candlelight, the fluid is clean blood, and not much of it, at that. He smooths the cream onto all exposed areas, then pauses to ask, "Is it all right if I put some inside? Or you could do it yourself..."

"Go ahead," the man grunts, tucking his chin, face-down to the ground.

Entering the man with one finger now is not at all like when they are in the alley, grinding against each other, high on arousal. Somehow, though, the sense memory of that warm cavern around him tells his hand to slow down and slide in and out. He spreads the slippery cream around, careful not to hurt.

The man makes a noise, and it's only then that he notices the tenseness in those bare shoulders. The bandage across the left scapula glows a stark white.

God. He pulls his finger out in a hurry. He's a sick, sick man.

He busies himself with rolling the gloves off and bundling them, along with stray detritus of packaging, into a ball. There's no trash can about, so he finally stuffs everything into his pocket. "Will you be all right?" he asks, stupidly.

"Yeah." The man still has not turned to look at him.

"Then I guess... I'll go now. See you soon?" He winces at his own inane words.

There is a long pause. "Hey, Friday."

"Yeah?"

"Don't come back."

"Wh- What?"

"Do us both a favor. Go find some other whore to fuck, okay? Grape vine says there's some good ass on Dogwood and Carlita."

"Is-- Is that what you want?" Despite the shock of the statement, he doesn't have any argument against it. There aren't any ties between them except for their 'business transactions'. He knows this man's pride. It might be impossible to continue as they had been, after this.

"Yeah."

It's hard to say the words, and he's not even truly convinced he means it, but he says, "All right." He waits almost half a minute to see if the man might change his mind. But the man says nothing more, so he exits the small room, closing the door behind him.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he has to sit down. He collapses against the wall and scrubs his face with his hands. He tries to be philosophical about the situation but fails utterly.

Well. He'd gotten what he'd wanted, hadn't he? He'd experienced his long-held forbidden desires. He'd exorcised through all manner of illicit sexual acts his frustration with his job and his personal life, his anger at the world. Somehow, all that had been replaced now with a deep ache of loss.

 _Loss of what?_ his rational mind scoffs.

A whore? A silly trick? A prostitute who had never given him anything but attitude? A regular mindless fuck? A steady drain on his money that he couldn't have afforded to keep up indefinitely anyway?

He drops his head into his hands. The pounding between his ears seems to throb all around him, echoed by the wall that's supporting him.

Abruptly alert, he sits up straight. That is no illusion of his stressed senses. He looks upward. The steady thumping sound is coming from upstairs.

Instantly, he's on his feet, leaping up the stairs two and three at a time. Visions of seizures or worse fill his mind. The man hadn't had a head wound, had he? He's sure of it. Almost sure. Nearly sure...

He hears a human roar, full of grief and rage. It goes on and on as he charges down the hallway as if in slow motion. He bursts into the room without even thinking of knocking. "What's wrong?" he gasps, fright still buzzing through his veins.

The man has curled up in a ball on his rude bed. As he enters the room, one closed fist is raised to slam into the floor again. The movement is arrested, and the man gapes up at him.

He falls to his knees beside the man, Crybaby tears falling from his eyes in place of the man's dry ones. "It's okay," he soothes, running hands that are quivering over the man's frozen body. "Please. It's going to be all right. Don't cry. I- I mean, don't... this."

He gathers the unresponsive figure into his arms, laying aimless kisses wherever he can reach. The man unfurls slowly, like a stiffened rag slowly soaked in water.

"What are you doing here? Why...?"

He kisses those lips, stopping any further questions. "Come home with me," he says, the words arriving without any thought. They feel right, though. Perfect. So he doesn't take them back. "Let me take care of you. At least until you're better."

"Jesus _fuck_. What are you doing, Friday?"

"My name," he says suddenly, drawing back so he can look into those widened eyes, "is Kenneth Hutchinson." He firms his grip when the man tries to pull back. He shakes the man slightly, to focus his attention.

"I'm a detective, sergeant class, vice department. You ever want to get me in trouble? Just go to the Metropolitan station downtown and tell them I've been paying you for sexual favors for the last six months. Internal Affairs already hates me. They'll think it's Christmas come early. I don't have any alibis for any Friday from February to now. You know that."

The man finally succeeds in pushing him away, hissing with pain and what must be anger. "Why are you telling me this?" he spits. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

He doesn't grab the man again. He knows he has the man's utter attention. "I want you to trust me."

" _Why_?"

He shakes his head. It doesn't matter why. He doesn't want to listen to reason and prudency right now. "Come home with me," he repeats.

"You're insane! Bonkers! Get out of here!" Forgetting his injuries, the man sweeps his left arm out toward the door and winces.

"You can rest here tonight. I can come back tomorrow morning to pick you up, help you pack and carry anything you want to take with you. You can say no tomorrow. But think about it? Please."

The man swears under his breath for several seconds. "You're crazy," he says. "Absolutely nutso."

"You haven't said no," he observes quietly.

"All right. No! No way!"

"There's a jobs program. I know the woman who runs it. We can put you in, get you some work. You can stay at my place until you can afford something for yourself. Someplace with electricity and a working shower."

"And what would I do while I'm shacking up with you, huh? A blow job for breakfast, a hand job for lunch, and a fuck at night? What's with you, anyway? This all turn you on?" The man spreads his arms, displaying his nude, bruised and battered body. "You disappointed somebody else got to me first? Too bad, Officer, your cock ain't big enough to make me bleed. Guess what? I can't hardly feel it when it's up there."

"That's not what I want." He shakes his head with calm decision, finding that he feels no anger, only heartbreak, at the man's lewd accusations. "I won't touch you while you're living with me."

"Oh, yeah? That's real big of you, kemosabe. You're just a big f'in' Good Samaritan. You got some friends you wanta show me off to, then? Rent my ass out to pay the bills? What's a cop make, anyway? 'Scuse me, a detective?"

"Stop." He reaches out, but the man shoves his hand away. A split-second later the man is groaning, doubled over bruised ribs aggravated by the sharp motion. He takes the chance to roll the man's solid body to the ground and pin him. The man stares back, his face indistinct in the dark. The candle had blown out at some point, he realizes. Moonlight makes everything stark and close.

"Get offa me." The man's normally cocky voice holds fear.

"You don't have to live like this."

"Get offa me!"

"It doesn't matter what you did. Or what was done to you. You don't deserve to live like this."

"Get--" The man swears and kicks, then moans again with pain. "What do you want? Oh god, just tell me what you want." Had the man begged his brutal assailant like this earlier in the night? Had the man sounded this hopeless, this... demoralized?

"What do _you_ want?" He loosens his grip on the man's wrists and he's relieved when the man doesn't struggle again to escape. "You can want things, even if you might not get them. It's allowed." He hesitates. "I can want things, too. I want _you_."

"Shop's--"

"--closed, I know. I don't mean like that. I want the rest of you. I want to really know you. As a friend. Just as a person, even. Will you let me?"

The man's eyes had squeezed shut. "Jesus. You don't-- You don't want me. You just said, you don't even know me."

He risks a soft caress of the man's jaw. He feels encouraged when the man does not turn away. "I think... I feel like I already know what's important." He slides off to the side, and the man makes no move to get up or to escape his touch.

"I'm an awful cook and a neat freak. You wouldn't want to live with me."

Hope flutters tentatively in his chest. "I have mood swings. And I'm stubborn as a mule."

"I let him do it." The man expels a breath.

Saying nothing, he lays a palm on the man's bare chest, feeling his quickened heartbeat.

"I wanted him to rape me. Hell, he didn't even hurt me bad enough. Damn pussy." The man catches his hand up with his own but twists away from his gaze. "I thought you weren't coming," the man whispers toward the window. "I thought you'd moved on."

Heart in his throat, he moves carefully to enfold the man's strong, brittle body from behind. He kisses the back of the man's neck. "I'm sorry. I was held up at work." He strokes the man's chest with both their still entangled hands. "Tomorrow?" His voice wavers, as he prays for the answer he wants.

There is only silence for a long time. Finally, a hushed voice fills the shadowed room:

"David. My name's... David. And, maybe. We'll see."

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:     
>      [An Answer For Another Day](http://community.livejournal.com/meandthee_wish/11846.html)(Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji     
>      [Beginnings And Endings](http://community.livejournal.com/starskyhutch911/140673.html)(Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji     
>     [Principal](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/18091.html)(Stargate SG-1), by kuonji     
>      [Angel And The Bad Man](http://shslash.kassidyrae.com/angel.htm)(Starsky & Hutch), by Cyn   
>      [Sink Or Swim](http://meandthee.shahrazad.net/display.php?storyid=680)(Starsky & Hutch), by Charlotte Frost    
>     [What Side Of The Bed?](http://kirstywelsh1.tripod.com/id32.html)(Starsky & Hutch art), by Kirsty Welsh  
>     
> 


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